West Indies Great Fast bowlers: If you had to pick 4 who would you pick?

Awhile ago cricinfo had their series where they went through some of the test teams and did their best XI. when it came time to pick the west indies bowling attack they decided that they'd take lance gibbs so they had a spinner which meant the greatest of all time WI attack that they picked only had 3 fast bowlers. that's a huge crime for a cricketing nation with such an incredible fast bowling history.

so here goes, i will list a substantial list and we then pick our best 4.

also as an extra i'd like to hear peoples opinions on WI fast bowlers who were thought to have tremendous talent but never lived up to it e.g. jerome taylor, reon king, fidel edwards, franklyn rose, jermaine lawson.

tough isn't it? my first 3 would be marshall, holding and ambrose. then roberts, garner clarke. then you have croft, walsh and bishop. wes hall is right there to.

doing some research i've found most people pout marshall, holding and ambrose in their top 4. the 4th spot tends to be interchangleable between numerous people i mentioned in the first post but roberts and garner are 2 of the more popular ones for the 4th spot.

but then clarke is said to have been possibley the most fearsome fast men of the 80s, walsh is amazing for his longevity, bishop was a good bowler his whole career but amazing before his back injuries. wes hall and charlie griffiths were a great team.

stephenson was a good bowler plus he had good batting skills to, patrick patterson wasn't as consistent as others but had the pace, bounce and the fury.

wayne daniel i reckon is underrated but he didn't play many tests, roy gilchrist was a quality bowler as well.

having looked up various top 10 lists of all time fast bowlers marshall and holding basically make everyones top 10 and walsh makes almost everyones top 10 and then ambrose is the next most picked out of the WI greats.

Originally Posted by Zunaid
I can pick a top 3 - Marshall, Holding, and Garner.

nice, but may i ask how did garner get into your top 3?

i'm starting to lean towards roberts as my 4th with marshall, holding and ambrose being in the top 3. on a side note ian bishop had a lot of potential but those back injuries really hampered him even though he still turned out to be a very very fine bowler.

now in terms of intimidation and ferocity guys like croft, clarke, gilchrist and patterson come into it. now that attack would be very unpleasant to face, of course the attack of marshall, holding, roberts and ambrose is the better and more skillful unit.

Well Gowza bhai....I've only seen the youtube videos of Holding and Garner to be honest and have read about them in newspapers....I wasn't even born when they were playing, but I was fortunate enough to see Ambrose and Walsh playing on tv. So that's why did not know about Marshall....

The new generation of WI players are more inclined towards BBall due to more lucrative leagues. However, with the new era of T20 leagues, where making 1M per year isn't very hard for good players, I think we can hope to see some new names on that list in the next 20 years.

Originally Posted by Leafs PWN
Very had to take it down But my list would be:

Joel Garner
Courtney Walsh
Curtly Ambrose
Michael Holding

The new generation of WI players are more inclined towards BBall due to more lucrative leagues. However, with the new era of T20 leagues, where making 1M per year isn't very hard for good players, I think we can hope to see some new names on that list in the next 20 years.

andre russell seems to be pretty decent from what i've seen.....i haven't really seen much of jason holder other than some footage from a couple of u19 games where he was ok, has the height though and has a good domestic record and his name has been thrown around over the years as a promising prospect. carlos brathwaite also looks decent and kemar roach is a solid bowler.

i always liked fidel edwards tbh but he just doesn't have the consistency.

glad to see walsh in a couple of top 4s i think he's underrated a little bit compared to guys like holding, ambrose, marshall, roberts.

i know sylvester clarke especially but wayne daniel as well were both considered very highly but lack of test matches puts them under the radar. patrick patteson had the attributes to be a great but didn't have the consistency of the others (had the weapons though).

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